


The Imperfect Art of Moving On

by eleutheria_has_won



Category: The Underland Chronicles - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Child Soldiers, Gen, His life sucks so hard, Loss, PTSD, Poor Gregor, Post-Code of Claw, Trauma, What happens to the hero after the end of the adventure?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2017-12-31 00:25:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleutheria_has_won/pseuds/eleutheria_has_won
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He fought wars. He killed hundreds. He saw things no boy of twelve should have to see. He was a soldier. He was a monster. </p>
<p>Now he just needed to learn how to be human, too. </p>
<p>This is the story of how Gregor moved on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning! This work might contain minimal SPOILERS for the end of Suzanne Collins' The Underland Chronicles series. Luckily, you could probably read it and not get all that much spoiled for you, but if you want to be on the safe side, wait until you've finished the series.
> 
> Soundtrack for this story: Welcome Home - Radical Face, Breathe - Anberlin, Shake It Out - Florence and the Machine

Gregor squinted against the bright afternoon sun and brought a hand up to his forehead to briskly swipe away the sweat that had collected there. Even after almost nine months between him and the last time he had set foot in the Underland, he still felt like the sun was consistently too bright and too hot, though that may have been, he thought, the effect of southern Virginia, not the sun itself.

Virginia was beautiful, even he had to admit. The rolling mountains around him (who knew mountains could be rolling?) were pristine, covered in forest, but with a few open fields. The valleys in between were almost entirely farmland, much like where he stood now, waist deep in young grain stalks. Only a few fields over, he could hear the rumbling voice of his uncle and the slightly higher pitch of his aunt, the actual owners of the farm he and his family were living on indefinitely. When he once bothered to ask his dad if they would ever be going back to New York (and the Underland), his dad just got an uncomfortable look in his eyes and changed the subject. So in all likelihood, Gregor wouldn't be going home. He didn't dare ask his mother, and asking his aunt and uncle would do nothing for him. Not for a long time.

It wasn't so bad here, though. His aunt and uncle put him to work on the farm, with Lizzie and Boots helping where their chores required it. Gregor had enjoyed learning how to coax a harvest from the ground while all of the other kids his age were all in school. It was peaceful. It was nice.

When they first arrived in Virginia, only a week or so after Grandma had passed away peacefully, his mom had wanted him to go directly into school; his father had talked her out of it. The deciding factor, Gregor thought, was himself. Despite an already-long recovery, he had still been gaunt and brittle; a minute's run could leave him shaking, then. For weeks after his emergence from the Underland, Gregor had existed in a haze; stumbling around, leaving the house at odd hours, walking at night, barely speaking to anyone at all. He had carried himself so carefully those weeks, talking only softly, moving only as slowly as he could, because it felt like he would snap if he went any faster or louder. His mother's looks, sad and wistful, had felt like bullets.

So his parents had decided that maybe Gregor needed some time to wake up and remember that he was Gregor Campbell, a teenage kid from the surface, not the Warrior, not a soldier, not an Underlander. So he had gotten all the rest of the school year just to heal. Healing and growing things on the farm. But it was summer now, and soon enough he would be back to school, back to life, such as it was. For months, he'd seen and spoken to no one but his aunt and uncle, his parents, and his younger siblings, not counting the animals that lived on or around the farm. But soon, within a few short months, he would have to face the world again. It should have been a terrifying prospect.

But it wasn't. It wasn't anything at all, not to Gregor.

Gregor wasn't entirely sure why he wasn't afraid, or even nervous, about something like the first day in a new school anymore. Afraid that he might lose control, yes. Afraid of social humiliation, of bullying, of bad grades, not at all. Maybe it just hadn't kicked in, yet. Maybe he was broken, or something.

Maybe it was just that he had seen far scarier things than young humans and change.

What ever it was, Gregor felt... not at peace, not quite. His nightmares could attest to that, and the way he flinched at the sound of banging metal and the smell of blood, both of which brought back flashes of terrible memory that overtook him like a storm. Grief, for Aries and his home and everything, shook him at the most unexpected moments. The noise of battle crept into his ears when it was too loud, or too quiet, or he wasn't paying attention. But aside from that...

He felt... passive. Empty. Lost. As though the world would do what it wished with him, and he had given up trying to stop it, or even caring about it. He had already done everything he was supposed to do in life. Now he was like a cast-aside tool, no longer used for any purpose, waiting for whatever happened. Uncaring either way. A warrior in a world that no longer wanted warriors.

That was all he was. That was all he had.

It was just a sad irony of fate that he was only thirteen, too.

Gregor shook his head and bent down into the grain field again, tugging again on the weeds scattered among the golden stalks. Thoughts like these were useless when there was work to be done. Autumn would come, whether he liked it or not, or neither of the above. So would school and the world and everything else outside the farm's borders.

Maybe it would disturb Lizzie or his mother that he was giving up on caring about life or himself. They needn't have, even if they had known. There had been too much death already, and Gregor wasn't that stupid. He didn't feel the need to die, just no need to worry about how he lived, either. Maybe it would worry them anyway.

But he didn't worry. Not him.

He just worked in the field. and waited for the coming of autumn.


	2. the first day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Gregor's first day at school after the war"
> 
> For the-what-but-not-the-when

 

Gregor re-shouldered his pack, a sensible black book bag, and tried to make sense of the rather wrinkled map in his left hand, flipping back and forth between that and the schedule stapled behind it. Frowning, he flipped back the late pass stapled to the top corner and studied the map when it failed to make sense. Despite being no larger than a square mile in total area, with a total population no larger than 400 hundred from both middle and high school (making it one of the largest schools in the area), Thomas Jefferson Secondary School had managed to completely confuse him within a minute of looking at the map. Now he was stuck standing in the small lobby as the minute bell rang, completely and utterly unsure of where to go next. Was he holding the map upside down or something? He hadn't thought it would be this hard already... Maybe if he...

“Hi, there!”

Gregor whipped around quickly, eyes wide and heart pounding as he struggled to force down his clamoring rager sense, which was insisting that he attack the threat now, ask questions later. His expression as he fought them back to silence must have been amusing in some fashion, for the girl who had sneaked up on him leaned back on her heels and laughed, smiling at him with straight white (human) teeth. Gregor was too busy trying to catch his breath to smile in return.

“You must be the new kid, the Mr. and Mrs. Kelly's nephew!” the girl said brightly, readjusting her grip on the textbooks in her arms and quickly sweeping hair out of her eyes. “I'm Lia, it's nice to meet you!” That brought a smile to Gregor's face. This girl reminded him of Mrs. Cormaci a bit. It made him put more effort into speaking than he normally would have with someone he had nearly killed by their own fault not moments ago. A lot of things felt like an effort, these days.

“You, too. I'm Gregor,” he said quietly, turning his attention back somewhat to the map and schedule still clutched tightly in his fist. But Lia, drawn by the movement of his hand uncurling, quickly put two and two together (two here being, respectively, a new kid and a new kid being very nearly late for class).

“Oh, are you lost?” she exclaimed, taking the papers out of his hand when he nodded slightly. “Then, as your first official welcome to our wonderful Jefferson Secondary”- and here she affected a slightly silly tone and bow which couldn't help but make Gregor smile despite himself- “allow me to guide you to where you need to go. Besides,” she added mischievously, “It's a good excuse for why I'm late on the first day.”

Gregor nodded again, allowing her to study the map, and studied her as she did so. She muttered to herself as she skimmed over the map, flipping back to the schedule several times and tracing stuff with her finger as she squinted at the badly printed text. Gregor didn't dislike this girl, strange as she was. She was only different, he knew, compared to the girls he'd known in the Underland. This cheerful girl had never lost anyone to violence. It showed. He thought, if he'd had more emotion to spare, that it would have made him sad that that was strange.

One of his mother's instructions had been to make friends of some sort (maybe because she knew Gregor wouldn't have tried on his own), and Gregor thought that Lia might make a good first friend in this new place. At the very least, she probably couldn't hurt anything. If there was anything more antithetical to the roar of battle, which crept into his ears when he wasn't paying attention, it was this girl's chatteriness.

“Ah!” the girl in question exclaimed, her face brightening with success, “Would you look at that? We have the same homeroom class! And looking down a bit... actually, we have a bunch of classes together! Great! Follow me!” Lia strode off down the hallway, beckoning Gregor after her. Lucky she didn't try to grab his wrist or something, Gregor thought wryly as he followed his energetic classmate. Since he had re-emerged into the Overland, touch had the ability to set him off, especially when he didn't expect it. His rager senses seemed to take everything as an attack; ironically, it was the lack of violence that was driving him crazy.

Finally, after a few turns and at least one flight of stairs (was he really that bad with maps? Lia assured him that yes, he probably was), the two reached a wooden door just like any of the others around it, distinguished only by a small poster that said 'Imagination Allowed!' in large, multicolored letters.

“Don't worry, Mr. Abbott's really nice,” Lia assured him as they stepped up to the door. “He won't mind at all, not on the first day. ” Gregor just smiled thinly. With luck, it didn't look too fake.

The door creaked open, and Gregor stepped in.

The room within was small, but windows all along one side, plus an abundance of colorful posters along the walls made it all less claustrophobic. (Not that Gregor would have been claustrophobic, either way. Months underground had weeded that out of him entirely.) However, a few of the almost twenty students packed into rows of desks seemed to be feeling the closeness. All of them turned to stare at Lia and Gregor when the door opened. Gregor stood there looking at them, measuring the nosey curiosity on their faces and already feeling tired with it. Lia just grinned and casually tossed Gregor's schedule at him over her shoulder as she trotted forward.

Senses splintering, he scrambled to catch the packet before it hit him in the face, grabbing at it wildly and far too accurately for an ordinary kid. There was a tense moment where he though he was going to rip it in half instead of hold onto it. When he had it firmly, he didn't lower his hands right away. Breathing slowly and deeply, he felt his sight settle into place again and his heartbeat slow. His face was on fire. That was too close, way too close, for only the first day. He'd raged a little right there. If papers being tossed at him could trigger him, what wouldn't? Not even fifteen minutes in and he was already doubting his ability to not kill his classmates by accident.

Lia, unaware of how close she'd come to dying, skipped forward cheerily. She presented Gregor's crumpled late pass, which she'd ripped off Gregor's map when he wasn't looking, to the scruffy thirty-something who was (presumably) the teacher. When the teacher gave her a look, she just smiled triumphantly at him.

“Sorry!” Lia said, totally not sorry. “I was helping the new kid! That's him,” she pointed at Gregor, like it hadn't been obvious.

The class's eyes caught on Gregor and stayed there. Gregor had thought nothing could shake his passivity, but even he shifted a bit uncomfortably under their combined stares. It wasn't the thought of facing them that unnerved him. It was just the feeling of watching eyes, felt as solidly as a punch, that raised the hair on his neck. It felt like they knew what he'd just done, how close he'd come. But the teacher's voice broke the spell.

“Thank you, Lia. There's a seat near the back for you...and for your friend, here. What's your name, son?” the teacher asked. Gregor turned to meet the eyes of the teacher, gaining his measure with a quick glance that, as always, was as instinctive as breathing. The man was around thirty, fairly young, with sandy-blond hair that hadn't yet started to recede. Nothing about him seemed malicious, and indeed he seemed, above all, inoffensive.

“Gregor Campbell,” the retired warrior said hoarsely, aware that he had taken just a second too long in reply for it to seem normal. Internally, he grimaced a bit. When had talking become such an effort? No one had made him talk so much on the farm. 

“Alright, Mr. Campbell,” the teacher said, “Please have a seat so we can begin. My name is Mr. Abbott, and I’ll be your geometry teacher for the rest of the year.” 

Gregor almost snorted as he found his seat and slid into it, keeping his head down. If only he could be sure he’d last that long. 


End file.
